So me and ruxy went for a summer trip in Seoul - It's NOT summer at all. In fact, when it's raining, it's similar to what I experience in autumn of Taiwan. Well weather's a bit nasty I have to say, killed off the opportunity for good photos (sigh). We opted for day trips outside of Seoul as Seoul was really too city-like - like few Orchards combined at different towns? I literally got bad mood on the day flying back from Jeju (seriously). Am very thankful for all the blogs that provided us so much information on (especially
boboandchichi.com - stumbled upon their blog posts and that's why we had these day trips) day trips - so yeah writing this down so that anyone planning day trips can have more reference :)
✅ Our daytrips outside Seoul included:
1. Paju Day Trip (Odusan Unification Observatory ➡ Gyeonggi English Village, Paju Camp ➡ Heyri Art Village)
2. Gangchon / Chuncheon Day Trip (Gangchon rail park ➡ Dakgalbi street at Chuncheon)
3. Pocheon Day Trip (Pocheon Art Valley)
The weather on the day we went to Paju was quite bad, we had drizzle whole day long - to the extent that I have to wear raincoat to keep me warm. Paju is really a wonderful place for photography, if not the best among the day trips (seriously).
Heading to Paju
How we got there:
1. Subway to Hapjeong station (Line 2, Exit 1)
2. Outside of Exit 1, locate a red, rounded bus sign of Bus 2200 (intervals of 15 minutes), take that bus to Heyri Art Village :) - should take about 45 minutes
On the bus, we were quite worried as the first few stations are announced in Korean Language (SO DID THE STATION NAMES ON SCREEN) - we waited until it approaches the art village, and was so relieved that English announcements are made. (One thing I like about travelling in Korea!) We followed another blog's advice to go down at entrance #4 of Heyri Art Village as there's more cafes and museums (The bus stops at #1, #4 and another one at the back.) - but the weather's so rainy - we literally sat at one of the shop's bench and waited until the tourist information center starts operating at 10am *Tourist information center can be found right at entrance #4, a colourful booth that is!
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| Heyri Art Village's sign post! |
The tourist booth (sorry, no photo on that) is the place to buy some combo tickets to enter some (affiliated I guess) galleries and museum, some including drinks / food voucher; or if you can read Korean - it's the place where a map of the village in Korean can be obtained. The young gentleman in the tourist booth did a real great job in telling us directions to most of the attractions we read about in other blogs, and to Odusan Observatory and English Village as well (even printed us coloured-maps to help us out). After getting the directions, we figure that we should go to the observatory first before spending more time later in the village. So here we go:
Odusan Unification Observatory
Admission: 3,000KRW
This is an observatory built on Odusan, overlooking the border of North Korea. Highly recommended if you have a thing for the mysterios North Korea!
How we got there:
1. Walk over to the bus stop at entrance #4 of Heyri Art Village (opposite to the ones we alight) and take the Bus 900 (green) down the slope
2. We told the driver that we are going to Odusan Unification Observatory (he's so kind to listen to us and brought us to the shuttle without charge as he has no passenger on bus at that time) and he dropped us at a place where the shuttle to the observatory operates (every 20 minutes)
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| Bus to the observatory! Free of charge :) |
For me, this is really a must-go if you are in Paju, especially if you are there on a sunny day. Seriously! Here's why:
- Be just few kilometers away from the North Korea
- Get the chance to have a peek at the mysterious country with binoculars
- Understand more about how people living in North Korea (at least from what was observed)
- Cheap alternative to the expensive DMZ tour which eats up whole day, this serves only as another destination on the trip to Paju
We had really bad luck on weather during our Korea trip - and it's raining all day during our trip to Paju. We were so excited about other bloggers saying that the binoculars should let you catch two men dressed in black walking to-and-forth - but well. The observatory did show a video of what should be observed when the weather is clear though. Very informative.
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| Nope. Um, just a layer of greys and whites seen. |
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| A 3-D illustration of how near are you to North Korea |
Gyeonggi English Village, Paju Camp
Admission: 7,000KRW
This is one interesting place, seriously. Apparently it is built because the authorities recognizes the importance of learning English - so they created these (there are other villages at other places as well) English villages, incorporating concepts of an English Language Learning Institution in. The village is complete with facilities like classrooms, city hall, shops, clinics - quite a cute concept! Everyone is encouraged to speak English in the village - we are so relieved to finally find some Koreans well versed in English - we had been relying on the Korean Language translator app for some time already.
On a side note, we got some discount on the admission ticket because we found the coupon book online for the Gyeonggi province - it's still valid through 2016-2017, it covers a lot of areas including Gapyeong area (Garden of Morning Calm, Petite France etc), be sure to give it a search if your destinations is covered. Some of the coupons required printing, some are okay to even accept coupons in your electronic devices.
How we got there (from Odusan Unification Observatory):
1. Walk out of the shuttle bus area to the bus stop outside and wait for Bus 2200.
2. Tell the driver you are heading to English village! Here you go!
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| The walls of the village have these on it - we walked right to the end to the main gate to enter the village. |
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Very impressed by their admission ticket - you get an English Village Passport and have to go through a customs check
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The day we went was apparently a holiday - there was no classes conducted in the village, so it's pretty empty and quiet. The village is literally a place where every single building is built beautifully - extremely suited for photographs. Don't know if they allows wedding photo shoot in the village itself - but it is really a nice place to.. take photos.
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| The Outdoor Theatre - I guess it's used for large scale events - but this looks perfect for a wedding haha |
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The gloomy English Village
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| The city hall - with raindrops sticking on the lens haha. |
Heyri Art Village
After we had enough time walking around in the English Village - we went back to the Heyri Art Village. Heyri Art Village is actually big enough to stretch over to the opposite of English Village: so we just crossed the road from the English Village, took a flight of stairs - and here we are in Heyri already. One thing I really liked about Heyri Art Village is its creativity in architecture, galleries, food. We stumbled upon a newly launched art gallery - DALA edutainment and met the very friendly artist - Julian Park - who insisted us to visit his new gallery. His assistant very patiently talked to us about the paper art that Julian is working on - and Julian even prepared the dove paper art with dried flower for us as a complimentary gift.
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| Julian and his dried flowers. Really curious on how he kept his flowers coloured after dried up |
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| You will be amazed how Julian folded a piece of paper into this dove. Beautiful |
We were pretty hungry afterwards so we followed one of the blogger's recommendations to eat at the Tin Toy Museum - their pizza's great! (or it's because we are really too hungry). We visited the rest of the village with the guidance of ruxy's self-deciphered map and explored the main areas of the village.
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| Tin Toy Museum on the outside. Dining and the museum is separated - you need to purchase ticket to enter the musem |
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Hot, thin crusted pizza. Finger licking good. 16,000KRW for this
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The main attractions in the village include the shooting place for the Korean Drama 'Boys Over Flowers' - where the canteen scene in the drama was shot in the Artinus Farmer's Table Restaurant (Artinus building's first floor), Alive Museum (covered in the coupon book as well), A LOT of galleries and museums (from timepiece, swords, books, movies) - you really have to spare a few hours to explore the whole village if you want to. Heyri Art Village needs no admission ticket, but every single gallery / museum inside requires separate admission tickets to access.
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The simple map we got in Chinese - and ruxy gave it an edit by adding in the places that we want to visit :)
Do note that it comes with some coupon for the Yellow Art Museum as well (on the right),
so feel free to ask for it from the tourist information counter |
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| One of the beautiful cafes in Heyri Art Village |
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| The movie museum. I wonder why sharks eat plants. |
And so that's a wrap. We took the same Bus 2200 back to Hapjeong station and went to other destinations at night. Paju is a great getaway from the busy Seoul, if you want to explore something new. Be sure to spend at least a day in Paju area - there are much more to explore!
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